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Show 402 PASSAGE OF COR DILLERA. March, 1835. second day's journey, we found only one little .pool. T.he water flowing from the mountains is small m quantl.ty and soon becomes absorbed by the dry and porous sml; so that, although we travelled at the di~tance of only t~n or fifteen miles from the outer range, we did not cross a smgle s t ream. In many parts the oa round was incrusted with. a saline effiorescence; hence we had the same salt-lovmg plants, common near Bahia Blanca. The landscape has one character from the Strait of Magellan along the whole eastern coast of Patagonia to the Rio Colorado ; and ~t appears t?at the same kind of country extends northerly m a sweepmg line as far as San Luis, and perhaps even further. To the eastward of this line, lies the basin of the comparatively damp and green plains of Buenos Ayres. The former count~y, including the sterile traversia of Mendoza and Patagoma, consists of a bed of shingle, worn smooth, and accumulated by the waves of a former sea ; while the formation ?f the Pampas (plains covered by thistles, clover, and grass) IS due to the estuary mud of the Plata, deposited under a different condition of circumstances. After our two days' tedious journey, it was refreshing to see in the distance the rows of poplars and willows growing around the village and river of Luxan. Shortly before we arrived at this place, we observed to the southward a ragged cloud of a dark reddish-brown colour. For some time, we had no doubt but that it was thick smoke proceeding from some great fire on the plains. Soon afterwards we found it was a pest of locusts.* The insects overtook us, as they were travelling northward, by the aid of a lig~t breeze, at the rate, I should suppose, of ten or fifteen miles an hour. The main body filled the air from a height of twenty feet, to that, as it appeared, of two or three thousand above the ground. The noise of their approach was that of a strong breezet pass- • The species is identical with, or resembles most closely, the famous GrgllttS migratorius of eastern countries. t " And the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle."-Revelat. ix. 9. March, 1835. SWARM OF LOCUSTS . 40.'3 ing through the rigging of a ship. The sky seen through the ad~anced guard .appear~d like a mezzotinto engraving, but the mam body was ImperviOus to sight; they were not, however, so thick, but that they could escape from a stick moved backward and forward. When they alighted they were more ~umerous ~han the leaves in a field, and changed the green mto a reddish colour: the swarm having once aliahted th m· d' 'd l fl 6 ' e IVI ua s ew from side to side in any direction. The locusts are not ah uncommon pest in this country: already during the season, several smaller swarms had come up from the. sterile. plains* of. the south; and many trees had been entirely stnpped of their leaves. Of course this swarm cannot even .be compared to those of the eastern world, yet it was suffi.CI~nt t~ ~ake the well-known descriptions of their ravages more mtelhg1ble. I have omitted, perhaps, the most striking part of the scene,-the vain attempts of the poor cottaaers to turn the stream aside. Many lighted fires and with the :moke with shouts and waving of branches, they endeavoured t~ avert the attack . We crossed the Luxan, which is a river of considerable size, though its course towards the sea-coast is very imperfectly kn.own: . It is even doubtful whether, in passing over the plams, It IS evaporated, or whether it forms a tributary of the Sauce or Colorado. We slept in the villaae which is a small place surrounded by gardens, and forms th~ most southern part, that is cultivated, of the province of Men~oza; it is five leagues south of the capital. At night I expenenced an attack (for it des·erves no less a name) of the Benchuca (a species of Reduvius) the great black bug of the Pampas. It is most disgusting to feel soft wingless insects, ~bout an inch long, crawling over one's body. Before suckmg they are quite thin, but afterwards become round and bloated with blood, and in this state they are easily crushed. • . Swarms of locusts sometimes overrun the more central plains of this contment. In these cases, and likewise as it appears in all parts of the world, the locusts are bred in desert plains, and thence migrate towards a more fertile country. z }) z |